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Knicks 2013 Preview: The Team

I’m kinda shocked by this one, because I took the under. Sure staying a top 5 defense season after season is difficult. Add in the injury to Shumpert and the over seems entirely probably.

On the other hand the offseason was mostly about adding defensive depth. When Tyson sits out a handful of games, the Knicks won’t be resorting to Jorts to start. It’ll be Camby or ‘Sheed or Kurt. There won’t be a Billy Walker to start in 8 games. Instead it’ll be White or Brewer. Defensively, they’re better in the middle and on the wings. This is a tremendous defensive upgrade in both personnel and overall team structure.

Depth counts, because when a starter is out, the 6th, 7th, or 8th guy gets his name announced while the laser show is going on. But just as importantly the 9th, 10th, or 11th guy has to step up & play more minutes as well. And this Knicks team is better defensively 6-11 than they were last year.

2. Offensive Rank 15th (under = better)
56% Over

I took the over, but the rest of the gang is split on this one.

Here’s my thinking: New York concentrated on the defensive end, and that’ll hurt them on offense. Sure Landry Fields will be gone, as will Jeffries, Douglas, and Bibby who were all mediocre to horrendous on offense. But it’s not like they went out to get some great scorers. Felton had a ts% of 49.1 which was worse than Fields’ 50.6%. And Raymond averages nearly 3 more shots per 36 minutes, which means from a shooting perspective he’s a bigger drag on the offense. Brewer, the guy we collectively penciled in as the starting SG, shot a 50.5% ts%.

As for another scorer the Knicks lost, if you throw out Renaldo Balkman and Jerome Jordan, Jeremy Lin was 3rd on the team in ts% last year. He also took the 6th most shots on the season. Sure Lin might not have repeated those numbers, but then again no one else likely will either.

And with all this, the team only ranked 17th last year. It’s going to take a Herculean effort from Carmelo, a big step forward for Shumpert, a return to the past for Amar’e Stoudemire or a career year from a guy like Felton to move up past 15th. It could happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

3. Regular Season Wins vs. Miami .5
89% Over

Brian Cronin says:

I find it extremely difficult to believe that the Knicks won’t get a win against Miami. I’d have put the over/under at 1.5. Will the Knicks split the season series? Now that’d be a lot tougher (I think I’d take the under).

I was the lone dissenter. Miami swept the regular season series last year and won 4 of 5 in the playoffs. That means they have a 62% chance of winning all 4 games against the Knicks. Which means Vegas is with me on this one.

4. Regular Season Wins vs. Lakers .5
55% Under

Same with this one.

5. Wins 45
89% Over

Don’t over-do it!

I took the over partially based on the answer to #1. Depth will be the key this year. Sure these vets are a little past their prime. But the reason for getting kids is because they’ll grow into something special, and clearly after the Lin debacle there is no hope for this team to keep a good young player. So why bother?

Additionally the top of the league just got a little worse. You don’t have to worry about Orlando anymore. Atlanta can’t replace Joe Johnson with Kyle Korver and John Jenkins (yet). Rose is out until January-ish. Bynum will likely miss 15-30 games. I have no faith in Avery Johnson being the coach that makes those guys work cohesively in New Jersey.

So really it’s part the Knicks got better, part the best teams in the Eastern Conference got worse. At least for this season. But for all the optimism I can muster, I would cap their wins at 50. Let’s not get too cocky here.

6. Playoff wins 4.5
56% Over

Yeah I said under.

First off there’s no guarantee the Knicks will get past the first round. It’s entirely feasible that they get the 5th or 6th seed and have to play on the road to get those first 4 wins.

Additionally even if they do get the home court advantage, then they’ll very likely have to beat the Heat or a Rose-ful Bulls in round 2 on the road. Sure they’ll only need to win one game at home for this to be over.

So yeah, I guess I can see both sides, hence why it’s so close. But I’ll stay with the under.

117 comments on “Knicks 2013 Preview: The Team”

I’m really surprised people were less confident that the defense would stay the same than the offense…

You really think the Bulls will be in the playoffs, let alone in the second round? Rose had surgery on May 12th with an 8-12 month recovery window – that means he’ll probably be back mid-March for the last 6 weeks of the season.

Last year’s bench bulls were much deeper than this year’s. Compare what they gained and lost:

Belinelli is way worse than Korver
Hinrich is a little worse than CJ Watson and way worse as a fit to replace Rose in providing some kind of offense. Hinrich’s usage % last season was 13.9% with a TS% of 51.1% and due to age probably can’t play more than 25 MPG which means 19 y/o marquis teague, the ancient Marko Jaric, or Nate Robinson is going to play significant minutes at PG; that’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Mohammed is way worse than Asik

If they’re something like 20-32 when Rose is ready to come back, why would they even let him play? Might as well tank the rest of the season.

Maybe I’m just the king of wishful thinking right now, but am I the only one who is more than a little intrigued about what Rasheed can give us? Doc Rivers has been quoted a few times saying that Rasheed still had the game, but just didn’t have the desire and physical fitness in his last year there. By all accounts, he seems to have the desire now (coming back to play for what probably isn’t a true championship contender for a minimum salary), and I love that Woodson won’t let him on the court until he meets some fitness requirement.

So bear with me here — on defense he has to be at least as mobile as Kurt Thomas, and while he’s not a great rebounder he is still a pretty good shot blocker and team defender. On offense – other than his last out of shape Boston year, he had shot 35-36% from 3 point range in 4 consecutive years – and 3 point shooting shouldn’t be something that goes away with age (but would go away with the being out of shape, no legs, etc.). That has to be respected, which will result in better spacing for Tyson-SMASH PNRs. In addition, he remained excellent post-up player even in that last out-of-shape year with a post-up PPP of 1.0 according to synergy – good for 21st in the whole league, and on a lot of possessions (293) so this is a real sample.

Anyway, I am sure this is all wishful thinking, but it sure feels like Rasheed would either be an excellent fit along with Chandler while Amare’s out. he’s a pretty good rim protector, and Chandler can probably guard most traditional 4s in the league. In addition, when Amare is back, he seems like a good choice to guard opposing centers and to stretch the floor when Amare switches to the 5 on offense.

Now it seems Chandler really doesn’t have a shot at the All-Star Team! They’re changing the All-Star rosters so now instead of a “center” position, there are just three “front court” positions to go along with two “back court” positions. So expect the East to have three small forwards.

Actually, I really don’t know who the third most popular forward is in the East. Lebron is obviously #1. Melo is likely #2. Who is #3? Bosh?

Re: Raymond Felton and everyone saying he’s high usage and low efficiency — yes, he’s high-usage compared to Jason Kidd, and low efficiency compared to Chris Paul. But if you look at the spread of PGs in the league, he’s pretty much an average usage guy for a PG (compared with other PGs playing 20+ min/game):

So below average, but not like Toney Douglas land.
So we’ll see average usage, slightly below average efficiency as a scorer.

But he’s a good passer, doesn’t turn the ball over much, and plays at least average defense. So look, he’s an average point guard. He’s not terrible. So I sort of think we should stop looking at him like a minus — of course we are all comparing him to Lin, but they are completely different players – in some respects Lin is probably better (high usage scoring – definitely not needed on this team), but Raymond is definitely a better defender and takes better care of the ball.

Frank:
Maybe I’m just the king of wishful thinking right now, but am I the only one who is more than a little intrigued about what Rasheed can give us? Doc Rivers has been quoted a few times saying that Rasheed still had the game, but just didn’t have the desire and physical fitness in his last year there.By all accounts, he seems to have the desire now (coming back to play for what probably isn’t a true championship contender for a minimum salary), and I love that Woodson won’t let him on the court until he meets some fitness requirement.

I’m not sure that I buy that he has the desire just because he’s coming back to play. I mean he opted to join the Celtics before his last year there…and then showed up totally out of shape, dogged it all year, and ended up with life-long fans calling him one of their least favorite players of their life-times.

The desire to want to be on a team is one thing. By all accounts Sheed has always loved the camaraderie of being on a team, and he enjoys being one of the guys. Furthermore, what else does Sheed really have going on? He’s not the announcer type, he’s not really the coach type, and I can’t really see him as a passionate golfer. And besides, the desire to want to play costs you absolutely nothing. Sheed probably woke up one morning, looked at another day sitting around in his sweats watching movies all day and thought “Huh, maybe I should try a comeback”. It’s that easy.

The desire Doc is talking about, on the other hand, is hard. It’s the desire to show up and work every day at practice, to be 100% focused at every game, and to get your ass down in the paint when you’re in instead of shying away from contact and shooting 3s all day. Sheed has always struggled with that focus, and it completely fell apart in Boston. I’m not buying that 2 years off has magically made it appear.

Frank:
So I sort of think we should stop looking at him like a minus — of course we are all comparing him to Lin, but they are completely different players – in some respects Lin is probably better (high usage scoring – definitely not needed on this team), but Raymond is definitely a better defender and takes better care of the ball.

We don’t need a high usage scorer on this team? Which Knicks are you watching? The only person that is currently healthy and can score the ball for us on high usage is Melo. When he kicks it out, we only have one credible 3PT threat. We have no backcourt threat at all, either via penetration, PnR scoring or shooting efficiency. We couldn’t use a high usage back court scorer on this team?

Sure Felton won’t turn the ball over. He won’t put the ball in the basket often either, leaving all the scoring to Melo. Poor guy’s efficiency is going to look downright horrible.

I have to disagree Frank. I do think we need a high usage scorer on this team. I never understood last year when people were like we don’t need a guy who can score the ball as much as we need a guy who can set Amare & Melo up. But Amare isn’t healthy & Melo needs help. Not saying that we need Lin (thus far he hasn’t been scoring has just been setting other people up) but if we had a Kyle Lowry type of pg as opposed to Felton we would definitely be better off. And Felton is not better defensively than Lin. He definitely wasn’t last year. Once again size is the perception. Has anybody seen anything at all impressive about Felton’s defense thus far?

knicknyk:
I have to disagree Frank. I do think we need a high usage scorer on this team. I never understood last year when people were like we don’t need a guy who can score the ball as much as we need a guy who can set Amare & Melo up. But Amare isn’t healthy & Melo needs help. Not saying that we need Lin (thus far he hasn’t been scoring has just been setting other people up) but if we had a Kyle Lowry type of pg as opposed to Felton we would definitely be better off.AndFelton is not better defensively than Lin. He definitely wasn’t last year. Once again size is the perception. Has anybody seen anything at all impressive about Felton’s defense thus far?

Dude, Felton’s defensive numbers were great in 2009 in the only situation comparable to Lin’s. He was better than Lin when he had a Chandler behind him.

Jafa: We don’t need a high usage scorer on this team?Which Knicks are you watching?The only person that is currently healthy and can score the ball for us on high usage is Melo.When he kicks it out, we only have one credible 3PT threat.We have no backcourt threat at all, either via penetration, PnR scoring or shooting efficiency.We couldn’t use a high usage back court scorer on this team?

Sure Felton won’t turn the ball over.He won’t put the ball in the basket often either, leaving all the scoring to Melo.Poor guy’s efficiency is going to look downright horrible.

Jafa: We don’t need a high usage scorer on this team? Which Knicks are you watching? The only person that is currently healthy and can score the ball for us on high usage is Melo.

If you look beyond the next 10 days, we’ve got plenty of high-usage scorers. Amare, Melo, and JR can shoot until the cows come home, and you have to figure at least 2 of them will be on the court at any given time.

And re: his shooting – I am very cautiously optimistic. I know I’ll be killed for doing this, but I think we should disregard the 1st half of 11-12 when he obviously wasn’t in shape. If you then look at his 3 point shooting going back to 2009-10 and disregard pre-ASB 2011-12, he has shot 209 of his last 571 from 3P range = 36.6%. Certainly serviceable as a 3 point shooter. Even if you include the pre-ASB horrible shooting, he is 238 for his last 668 3 point attempts = 35.6%.

Now if you consider that our PGs in total last year (Lin, Bibby, TD, Baron) shot a combined 104 for 362 (27.8%) from 3, if we just had Felton shooting all those shots at 35.6%, we would have hit 25 more 3 pointers = 75 more points (or another 1.13 PPG). Not sure how to do the pythagorean thing re: wins expected, but I imagine that in itself if probably worth several wins.

Anybody see the ESPN report that the Rockets owner was the one pushing for Jeremy Lin, and that management wasn’t as high on him? Hmm, the owner insisting on overpaying for a marquee star to try and fill seats, where have I seen that before?

I know what you mean, but at least Lin does actually fill seats, and he filled a position they badly needed (point guard). Now someone like Tracy McGrady on the other hand . . .

I’d like to think Lin isn’t worth it, but I just can’t make myself believe it.

d-mar:
Anybody see the ESPN report that the Rockets owner was the one pushing for Jeremy Lin, and that management wasn’t as high on him? Hmm, the owner insisting on overpaying for a marquee star to try and fill seats, where have I seen that before?

Frank: If you look beyond the next 10 days, we’ve got plenty of high-usage scorers. Amare, Melo, and JR can shoot until the cows come home, and you have to figure at least 2 of them will be on the court at any given time.

And re: his shooting – I am very cautiously optimistic.I know I’ll be killed for doing this, but I think we should disregard the 1st half of 11-12 when he obviously wasn’t in shape.If you then look at his 3 point shooting going back to 2009-10 and disregard pre-ASB 2011-12, he has shot 209 of his last 571 from 3P range = 36.6%. Certainly serviceable as a 3 point shooter. Even if you include the pre-ASB horrible shooting, he is 238 for his last 668 3 point attempts = 35.6%.

Now if you consider that our PGs in total last year (Lin, Bibby, TD, Baron) shot a combined 104 for 362 (27.8%) from 3, if we just had Felton shooting all those shots at 35.6%, we would have hit 25 more 3 pointers = 75 more points (or another 1.13 PPG). Not sure how to do the pythagorean thing re: wins expected, but I imagine that in itself if probably worth several wins.

Check out my posts on turnovers a few days back. The Knicks struggled on offense not because of shooting ineffeciency but ridiculously high turnover rate. that should go Waaaayyyyy down.

Now, consider that as a unit, the Knicks point guards combined to have a .473 TS, which ranked 28th in the league.

‘That will get better respective to the rest of the league, so will turnover percentage, so will offensive rebound percentage (Camby is a monster there)…..

Even if Melo, Smith and Amar’e don’t have better numbers — which is a joke to me — the Knicks offense will be improved.

And for those of you who claim schedule , remember that the Knicks were at their best on both ends of the floor with Woodson– when the schedule was considerably more difficult.

ruruland: So, how do we break this down, because if we’re only going to consider a shortened season, we then have to consider short-term trendlines and those look awful for Lin.

What are you talking about Ruru. I just said that we are in 2012 so banking on the fact that Felton will return back to his 2009 numbers (age 24) is silly. Felton is 28 & he does not take good care of his body so he has likely lost a step in terms of athleticism and thus defensive ability. We saw this in his most recent year in Portland when he didn’t look very good at all on the defensive end. Like are we also going to assume that Kidd is going to return back to his 2004 defensive ability when he was 35?

knicknyk: What are you talking about Ruru. I just said that we are in 2012 so banking on the fact that Felton will return back to his 2009 numbers (age 24) is silly. Felton is 28 & he does not take good care of his body so he has likely lost a step in terms of athleticism and thus defensive ability. We saw this in his most recent year in Portland when he didn’t look very good at all on the defensive end. Like are we also going to assume that Kidd is going to return back to his 2004 defensive ability when he was 35?

I see all the quickness he had in 2009, and every year he wasn’t a fucking tootsie roll.

If this is your argument, then you’ll need to concede that Lin will never be as quick because of the surgery. There’s far more reason to believe Lin is having a more difficult time recovering from surgery than Felton is from weight loss (right, what?)

Neither one is likely true. Despite that, plenty of ways to remain a very good defender even if your physical abilities decline, which has not been demonstrated this year with Felton.

this is pretty misleading, Butler didn’t even play in the postseason as I recall and JJ Barea was probably their third most important guy in the playoffs behind Dirk and Chandler (from memory).

I compared this Knicks team to the title-winning Dallas team a few times last year, but I think the better comparison/role model may be the Sixers team that made the Finals with Iverson dominating the offense and Mutumbo dominating the defense (Melo/Chandler in those roles, obviously). I also have very little faith in Amare to contribute alongside Melo, hope I’m wrong.

when I think about this team, I just keep coming back to JR Smith, same as last year. we may live or die as he goes this year.

Felton has a bad habit of not being able to stay physically in shape Ruru. Just because you aren’t overweight doesn’t mean that you are at your athletic peak. Not every NBA player trains as hard over the off-season as Amare. Steve Nash just said that he doesn’t even play basketball during the off-season that he does other things to stay in shape. And his physical defensive abilities did decline last year Portland fans saw it because once again he was overweight. . Honestly, it is just pre-season & it is fools gold in so many ways. But thus far I have seen very little positive about Feltons defense. But its’ pre-season & its meaningless like so whatever.

On the other hand, the Knicks lost Lin, who was a plus defender last year. This fact was partly obscured at the time by the fact that when Lin arrived and the defensive improved, that coincided with Amare and Melo being out. However, Lin and Chandler had the 17th best two-man lineup defensive efficiency in the NBA last year, and that’s despite Lin’s minutes overlapping with the poor defense of Melo and especially Amare[1]. Lin was also 2nd among starting point guards in steals-blocks-charges taken/40 last year[1], just behind everyone’s new celebrated defensive standout Ricky Rubio. Of course, this is on top of Lin being considered a plus defender at Golden State and having the #1 DRtg at D-league in his season there. Just goes to show how much bias and media narrative has to do with how a player is perceived.

jon abbey: this is pretty misleading, Butler didn’t even play in the postseason as I recall and JJ Barea was probably their third most important guy in the playoffs behind Dirk and Chandler (from memory).

I compared this Knicks team to the title-winning Dallas team a few times last year, but I think the better comparison/role model may be the Sixers team that made the Finals with Iverson dominating the offense and Mutumbo dominating the defense (Melo/Chandler in those roles, obviously). I also have very little faith in Amare to contribute alongside Melo, hope I’m wrong.

when I think about this team, I just keep coming back to JR Smith, same as last year. we may live or die as he goes this year.

That lineup went 17-3 in the regular season. They used a lot of JJ (see Felton) and Peja (Novak).

I fail to see how this is misleading. 17-3 is 17-3. The Mavericks best regular season starting lineup in its championship season had two pretty poor offensive players and Jason Kidd.

I mean,Shawn Marion was inserted for them. Not the Phoenix marion, the very mediocre one.

Also, the Knicks have very little chance of playing up to my predictions if Amar’e doesn’t have a really nice comeback year, which I totally believe he will.

We’re looking at a stretch with Amar’e last year when healthy tat was the same Amar’e he’s always been.

It’s very hard to be incompatible with an offense when you are an excellent mid-range shooter (every year but last) and can function both in continuity and in mismatches.

knicknyk:
Felton has a bad habit of not being able to stay physically in shape Ruru. Just because you aren’t overweight doesn’t mean that you are at your athletic peak. Not every NBA player trains as hard over the off-season as Amare. Steve Nash just said that he doesn’t even play basketball during the off-season that he does other things to stay in shape. And his physical defensive abilities did decline last year Portland fans saw it because once again he was overweight. . Honestly, it is just pre-season & it is fools gold in so many ways. But thus far I have seen very little positive about Feltons defense. But its’ pre-season & its meaningless like so whatever.

All baseless opinion. Again, this is a comparison between he and Lin, who has actually admitted he’s not the same guy — yet.

You’re not going to believe what Mike Woodson says about Raymond Felton’s defense, so until the numbers start coming back in a few months we’ll just have to wait.

formido:
On the other hand, the Knicks lost Lin, who was a plus defender last year. This fact was partly obscured at the time by the fact that when Lin arrived and the defensive improved, that coincided with Amare and Melo being out. However, Lin and Chandler had the 17th best two-man lineup defensive efficiency in the NBA last year, and that’s despite Lin’s minutes overlapping with the poor defense of Melo and especially Amare[1]. Lin was also 2nd among starting point guards in steals-blocks-charges taken/40 last year[1], just behind everyone’s new celebrated defensive standout Ricky Rubio. Of course, this is on top of Lin being considered a plus defender at Golden State and having the #1 DRtg at D-league in his season there. Just goes to show how much bias and media narrative has to do with how a player is perceived.

The efficiency difference can largely be explained by the opponents — I’ll go back and show the opponents and their o-rating against just lin and Chandler, and those against Amar’e, Lin, Chandler, Amar’e, Melo, Lin and Chandler.

Linsanity came largely against some of the worst teams in the league. Amar’e and Melo’s return coincided with the most sifficult part of the schedule.

formido:
On the other hand, the Knicks lost Lin, who was a plus defender last year. This fact was partly obscured at the time by the fact that when Lin arrived and the defensive improved, that coincided with Amare and Melo being out. However, Lin and Chandler had the 17th best two-man lineup defensive efficiency in the NBA last year, and that’s despite Lin’s minutes overlapping with the poor defense of Melo and especially Amare[1]. Lin was also 2nd among starting point guards in steals-blocks-charges taken/40 last year[1], just behind everyone’s new celebrated defensive standout Ricky Rubio. Of course, this is on top of Lin being considered a plus defender at Golden State and having the #1 DRtg at D-league in his season there. Just goes to show how much bias and media narrative has to do with how a player is perceived.

No media bias played any part in me watching Jeremy Lin smash into screens before getting lit up by any point guard with a mid range jumper. Nor did it play any part in his getting consistently beat by his man one on one. Considering you called Melo a poor defender for no reason other than media narrative and perception (he was the Knicks 3rd best defender last year, and Shump and Chandler are defensive monsters) your post is pretty ironic. As a Rockets fan, I wish Jeremy Lin could defend, but it’s just not true…

Formido: this board has decided (incorrectly IMHO) that steals are meaningless. I think they are VERY important. Lin is leading all NBA players right now in steals/game. Felton simply does not steal the ball. It’s actually lookin’ like Felton is a threat from 3, and Lin is at best spotty from there. They are just very different players. Instead of assist/turn ratio I think a better quick and dirty stat should be assists + steals – turns call it “PG Game Rater” Btw, Rondo and Nash (in preseason) have been turnover machines, and they are regarded as the Holy Grail of PG-dom.

Possible good news on the regular season wins front, looks like Bynum could miss start of season and since they play the Knicks in the 3rd and 4th games of the season could be good news for the Knicks.

Of course, it shouldn’t be surprising Lin is a plus defender as that has a lot to do with athleticism…and by eye test, Lin is super athletic. Mike Breen noticed it right off in his broadcasts and Hubie Brown couldn’t stop raving about his quickness and the fact that he was a big, strong guard during his color commentary.

The eye test can be deceiving[1], though, so I like to get data. Does he have a great steals-blocks-charges taken rate? Does he get a lot of rebounds for his height? Does he get a high rate of free throw attempts? These things all are highly correlated with athleticism.

Best of all, of course, is direct measurements, which in this case confirm the eye test: Lin displayed elite point guard athleticism at NBA pre-draft combine tests[2].

BigBlueAL:
Possible good news on the regular season wins front, looks like Bynum could miss start of season and since they play the Knicks in the 3rd and 4th games of the season could be good news for the Knicks.

Gotta adjust my start of the season prediction: Knicks will now go 2-2 instead of 1-3.

BigBlueAL:
Possible good news on the regular season wins front, looks like Bynum could miss start of season and since they play the Knicks in the 3rd and 4th games of the season could be good news for the Knicks.

Andrew Bynum could have had his surgery in May but he waited until later to have this. That is a little bit ridiculous in my opinion. Now he is looking like Fredrick Douglas with his hair.

I don’t think anyone said that steals are meaningless (certainly I didn’t), just that they are not a reliable measure of overall defensive play at the PG position; in the same way that blocked shots are not the end-all for big men.

My issue with Lin’s defense was that he did not seem to get around screens or up on shooters very well and that he did not defend bigger players well after a switch (relative to other PGs, of course.) A split second or a few inches given up elsewhere when a co-defender needs to hedge or double whenever you are in isolation can create defensive issues way on the other side of the court when the ball is quickly rotated. For example, if Chandler knows that Lin is going to get beat off the dribble by Rondo most every time they are isolated, he may have to hedge or help and give, say, Garnett enough space to catch and shoot an open or lightly contested 15-18 footer before he can recover, or to cause someone to help on Garnett, leaving Bass open, etc. No amount of steals makes up for that. Similarly with screens, if Rondo causes Lin (or Felton) to switch to Pierce every time he goes around a screen, that isolates the PG on Pierce, even if it isn’t his fault. The question then becomes, can he stall Pierce from taking a high-percentage shot or getting to the line until the D can adjust? Re:Nash, being super efficient on O balances things out (his D has been criticized forever, even in his MVP years when some blamed his poor D on PHX not ever reaching the finals). CP3 is in a league by himself (despite his size) as a defender.

No PG is going to shut down the skilled wings and big men in the league for very long, but buying a half a second or a couple of feet makes a huge difference to overall team defense. I believe that Felton is significantly better in this regard than Lin, although neither is in the class of Kidd, Rondo or CP3. In the NBA, defensive weaknesses are rapidly identified and exploited, so let’s see what happens in weeks…

Juany8: No media bias played any part in me watching Jeremy Lin smash into screens before getting lit up by any point guard with a mid range jumper. Nor did it play any part in his getting consistently beat by his man one on one. Considering you called Melo a poor defender for no reason other than media narrative and perception (he was the Knicks 3rd best defender last year, and Shump and Chandler are defensive monsters) your post is pretty ironic. As a Rockets fan, I wish Jeremy Lin could defend, but it’s just not true…

Juany and I have disagreed on whether it was a no-brainer to match Lin (he says yes, I say no although I would have been fine with it if we did). However, we both agree on Lin’s D being an issue. I’m sure he will keep us well-informed re: Lin’s progress in this and other areas as he watches Rockets games down in Houston, right, J8?

This says nothing about Houston coaching staff not being very high on him so I do not know.

Z-man I haven’t seen much in terms of Felton being good at getting around screens or up on spot up shooters thus far. But I will just wait and see until the regular season. Pre-season is pointless in so many ways & the team is still trying to figure things out defensively.

knicknyk: This says nothing about Houston coaching staff not being very high on him so I do not know. Z-man I haven’t seen much in terms of Felton being good at getting around screens or up on spot up shooters thus far. But I will just wait and see until the regular season. Pre-season is pointless in so many ways & the team is still trying to figure things out defensively.

Agreed. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are lots of ??? about Felton. Where we disagree is that I think Lin has just as many, if not more.

Possible good news on the regular season wins front, looks like Bynum could miss start of season and since they play the Knicks in the 3rd and 4th games of the season could be good news for the Knicks.

Juany8: No media bias played any part in me watching Jeremy Lin smash into screens before getting lit up by any point guard with a mid range jumper.

Your eye test simply doesn’t mesh with Lin’s Synergy stats for defending the PnR ball handler, which are very high. He gave up .72 ppp, 37.6 FG% defending the PnR ball handler — which ranked him #59 in that category. To put that in perspective, Rubio who is known for his good defense, was ranked #133 in that category, and Felton was ranked #106. In this category, Lin was also superior to the previous Houston PGs: Dragic was #76, Lowry was #126. And higher than the PGs he’s met in the preseason thus far: Conley was #106, Parker was #148, Westbrook was #156.

I’m sure some homer while find some way to dismiss Lin’s stats bc he’s not a Knick anymore, while somehow recognizing the validity of Synergy numbers for every other player in the league. The homerism on this board is astounding.

Yup – one big difference is efficiency as a jump shooter and especially last season for Melo. From our friends at postingandtoasting — VORPed highlights that Melo’s 2nd and 3rd favorite spots on the floor (in terms of volume of shots taken) — the right corner three and the right corner long two — were also his most inefficient shots from anywhere on the floor, where his 2nd and 4th least efficient areas on the floor (out of 14 identified zones on the floor). Gets back to the shot selection argument from yesterday.

Your eye test simply doesn’t mesh with Lin’s Synergy stats for defending the PnR ball handler, which are very high. He gave up .72 ppp, 37.6 FG% defending the PnR ball handler — which ranked him #59 in that category. To put that in perspective, Rubio who is known for his good defense, was ranked #133 in that category, and Felton was ranked #106. In this category, Lin was also superior to the previous Houston PGs: Dragic was #76, Lowry was #126. And higher than the PGs he’s met in the preseason thus far: Conley was #106, Parker was #148, Westbrook was #156.

I’m sure some homer while find some way to dismiss Lin’s stats bc he’s not a Knick anymore, while somehow recognizing the validity of Synergy numbers for every other player in the league. The homerism on this board is astounding.

Brian Cronin: You can disagree with people without calling them “homers.” All sorts of ad hominems are pretty pointless when it comes to debating.

Yes, and er said I had a petty “little heart” for saying Melo is continuing to shoot a lot instead of passing out of double and triple teams. If you’re going to moderate this board, please attempt to be consistent in calling that out.

Felton was terrible at defending spot ups last year. 1.24 vs spot-ups (381) 49.5% spot-up. Once again this perception that he is a good defender bothers me on so many levels. This bull dog thing is just so odd. But whatever lets just wait & see.

In regards to this Net game. Woody is not starting Melo at the 4 which is idiotic. Avery publicly said that the Nets have trouble guarding smaller quicker 4’s.

Brian Cronin: You can disagree with people without calling them “homers.” All sorts of ad hominems are pretty pointless when it comes to debating.

I did not refer to anyone or name anyone as a “homer.” I used that term not to refer to any particular poster but the general phenomenon I have seen of dismissing Lin’s defensive stats whenever they don’t fit with people’s preconceptions. Without using the term “homer,” I’ll describe it instead of a double standard. When the stats of current Knick players look good, they are legit, but when Lin’s stats look good, they are discredited for some reason or another.

Lin hasn’t played a regular season game for more than half a year; the data hasn’t changed this ENTIRE time. Yet, the view about him on this board has shifted considerably. When the data is exactly the same but the conclusions are different, certainly one of those two must be misjudging the data. What HAS changed during that time is that Lin is no longer a Knick, which looks to me like that most relevant change during a period in which the data is the same.

Is it silly to tell people they have “little heart”? Sure. But it is worse for the purpose of debate to write off dissenting opinion as “homerism.” And there is no difference between “you, poster A, are being a homer” and “you posters here are homers.”

The argument is especially silly since, just as an example, Juany8, who you were just disagreeing with, had been complaining about Lin’s defense ever since Linsanity began. Plenty of people have knocked Lin’s defense while he was a Knick. Were they being homers then? If you find a guy who said Lin was good defensively during the season and is now saying he is bad, then fine, you can legitimately call that dude a hypocrite. I am not seeing any of that here.

If no one is doing that, then “There’s a lot of homers” here is just a debate-killing tactic, tossing aside the very purpose of debate, which is the meeting of the minds. There can be no meeting of the minds when you are saying the other guy does not believe what he says.

edit: “instead OF a double standard” should read “instead AS a double standard”.

And to continue the thought, it may be indeed that the previously positive assessment of Lin was wrong and current assessment is correct — in which case the earlier assessment was the homery one. Or, that the previous assessment was closer to the truth and the current assessment is wrong — in which case the current assessment is the homery one. When the data has not changed for more than half a year but the evaluation has changed, it certainly makes one wonder What exactly has changed during that time period?

Brian Cronin:
Is it silly to tell people they have “little heart”? Sure. But it is worse for the purpose of debate to write off dissenting opinion as “homerism.” And there is no difference between “you, poster A, are being a homer” and “you posters here are homers.”

The argument is especially silly since, just as an example, Juany8, who you were just disagreeing with, had been complaining about Lin’s defense ever since Linsanity began. Plenty of people have knocked Lin’s defense while he was a Knick. Were they being homers then? If you find a guy who said Lin was good defensively during the season and is now saying he is bad, then fine, you can legitimately call that dude a hypocrite. I am not seeing any of that here.

If no one is doing that, then “There’s a lot of homers” here is just a debate-killing tactic, tossing aside the very purpose of debate, which is the meeting of the minds. There can be no meeting of the minds when you are saying the other guy does not believe what he says.

sidestep: Your eye test simply doesn’t mesh with Lin’s Synergy stats for defending the PnR ball handler, which are very high. He gave up .72 ppp, 37.6 FG% defending the PnR ball handler — which ranked him #59 in that category. To put that in perspective, Rubio who is known for his good defense, was ranked #133 in that category, and Felton was ranked #106. In this category, Lin was also superior to the previous Houston PGs:Dragic was #76, Lowry was #126. And higher than the PGs he’s met in the preseason thus far: Conley was #106, Parker was #148, Westbrook was #156.

I’m sure some homer while find some way to dismiss Lin’s stats bc he’s not a Knick anymore,while somehow recognizing the validity of Synergy numbers for every other player in the league. Thehomerism on this board is astounding.

How do you reconcile that with being supposedly a poor defender? I’d like to hear this.

Well, at the risk of being called a homer, you know who was great guarding the pnr according to synergy? Amar’e, that’s who!! He ranked 15th in the league in ppp guarding the roll man (Chandler ranked 80th and Amar’e’s numbers guarding the ball handler were better than Chandler’s as well). If there’s a place where synergy seems completely at odds with the eye test, pnr defense is it.

I would agree that Lin is underrated defensively but he’s played less than half a season and there were some red flags- mainly that he struggled to keep quicker guards in front of him- Tony Parker absolutely destroyed him and he really struggled with Brandon Jennings as well.

I’d also add in Lin’s defense that just about every guard struggles to keep ultra quick guards in front of them since the hand-check went by the wayside. I’m not sure he’ll ever be a great defensive guard but I do think he’s got the potential to be solidly above average.

nicos: Well, at the risk of being called a homer, you know who was great guarding the pnr according to synergy?Amar’e, that’s who!! He ranked 15th in the league in ppp guarding the roll man (Chandler ranked 80th and Amar’e’s numbers guarding the ball handler were better than Chandler’s as well).If there’s a place where synergy seems completely at odds with the eye test, pnr defense is it.

I would agree that Lin is underrated defensively but he’s played less than half a season and there were some red flags- mainly that he struggled to keep quicker guards in front of him- Tony Parker absolutely destroyed him and he really struggled with Brandon Jennings as well.

LOL, that is totally messed up. Thanks for pointing out Amare’s Synergy stats for PnR. Hrm, I’m not going to think about it too hard since I’m going to watch bball soon, but it does make you wonder why Synergy stats for PnR are problematic.

As for having problems with keeping opposing quick guards in front of him, that is entirely consistent with Lin’s poor Synergy stats for defending isolation plays.

nicos:Well, at the risk of being called a homer, you know who was great guarding the pnr according to synergy? Amar’e, that’s who!! He ranked 15th in the league in ppp guarding the roll man (Chandler ranked 80th and Amar’e’s numbers guarding the ball handler were better than Chandler’s as well). If there’s a place where synergy seems completely at odds with the eye test, pnr defense is it.

I would agree that Lin is underrated defensively but he’s played less than half a season and there were some red flags- mainly that he struggled to keep quicker guards in front of him- Tony Parker absolutely destroyed him and he really struggled with Brandon Jennings as well.

That is really messed up, but I can see why that is. In the game where Tony Parker destroyed Lin, compare and contrast how Lin defended Tony Parker in the pick and roll:

if Lin was still on NY, I think there would still be a very similar range of opinions about him here, FWIW. “homers” would be bigger fans of Melo across the board, and he probably takes more flak here than anyone else in the league, except maybe Amare.

I have an increasingly bad feeling about this season for the Knicks. at this point, I think I’m looking forward more to ruru’s explanations of why his 60 win team ended up falling on their faces than I am actually watching the Knicks.

jon abbey:
if Lin was still on NY, I think there would still be a very similar range of opinions about him here, FWIW. “homers” would be bigger fans of Melo across the board, and he probably takes more flak here than anyone else in the league, except maybe Amare.

I have an increasingly bad feeling about this season for the Knicks. at this point, I think I’m looking forward more to ruru’s explanations of why his 60 win team ended up falling on their faces than I am actually watching the Knicks.

i Think people are being to hard on him. He has done well. Driving to the basket and hitting the open 3. He may need to defend the screen better but for the most part his D has been ok. Actually all the guards have played well. Prigs is doing good things but is gambling to much. Kidd has looked ok and White and Brewer where o.k. Brewer had a very slow start and still looks out of place.

Brooklyn starters played a good amount of mins that half. We have 5 players out who we are relying on to be key contributors on both ends in amare chandler jr shump and camby. Melo and the offense look awful and somehow this is a very winnable game. Preseason or not thats something to build on considering some believe Brooklyn will be the better team.

nyklyt12:
Brooklyn starters played a good amount of mins that half.We have 5 players out who we are relying on to be key contributors on both ends in amare chandler jr shump and camby. Melo and the offense look awful and somehow this is a very winnable game. Preseason or not thats something to build on considering some believe Brooklyn will be the better team.

yellowboy90: i Think people are being to hard on him. He has done well. Driving to the basket and hitting the open 3. He may need to defend the screen better but for the most part his D has been ok. Actually all the guards have played well. Prigs is doing good things but is gambling to much. Kidd has looked ok and White and Brewer where o.k. Brewer had a very slow start and still looks out of place.

I have been hard on him. He’s had a decent night, so I’ll chill. It’s not about Lin. So over that whole thing.

I think everyone had a good game besides Melo, Novak, and Brewer early. I did like Melo looked better the second half but he needs to move more. Played good D though. Brewer looked like he is still rusty but you see the D is there and I liked that he was aggressive. I liked how everyone(white briefly and Thomson) at the wings besides Shurna looked confident in there shot and didn’t hesitate.

Glad the players that are not going to make the team went out on a high note.

Some observations:
Felton is clearly in excellent shape, anyone who says otherwise at this point is trolling.

Don’t worry about Kidd, he’s so playin’ possum, he knows preseason means nothing and there’s no sense in getting hurt at his age by trying too hard for now. He is so far ahead of anyone on this board or pretty much anywhere about everything that has to do with playing basketball. He’s the least of our worries.

Brewer is a defensive menace. Good find!

Great Knickname for Copeland: Predator

I only saw Lin for a minute at the end of his game…he looks physically very good. Not a great preseason for him, though.

Z-man:
Some observations:
Felton is clearly in excellent shape, anyone who says otherwise at this point is trolling.

Don’t worry about Kidd, he’s so playin’ possum, he knows preseason means nothing and there’s no sense in getting hurt at his age by trying too hard for now. He is so far ahead of anyone on this board or pretty much anywhere about everything that has to do with playing basketball. He’s the least of our worries.

Brewer is a defensive menace. Good find!

Great Knickname for Copeland: Predator

I only saw Lin for a minute at the end of his game…he looks physically very good. Not a great preseason for him, though.

What would Kidd know about pacing himself in preseason?

Also, one thing to say a guy wasn’t great, and Lin will get better, but is it possible to be worse?

Lin’s numbers preseason: 8/36 shooting .22%

He’s scored 23 pts in over 100 minutes. He almost has as many turnovers as points !!!!

His fta attempts are way down, his assists are up, and even with one very good passing game, his assists per 36 are also way down.

He’s not even making free throws when he gets there. His TS% is hovering near the upper 20s.

That’s incredibly bad. Maybe he turns it up big-time like a lot of vets will, but it’s gotta be like DEFCON 3 or 4, if only because of the extremely limited sample, the trendline dating back to the final 15 games of last season and the knee injury .

Also, one thing to say a guy wasn’t great, and Lin will get better, but is it possible to be worse?

Lin’s numbers preseason: 8/36 shooting .22%

He’s scored 23 pts in over 100 minutes. He almost has as many turnovers as points !!!!

His fta attempts are way down, his assists are up, and even with one very good passing game, his assists per 36 are also way down.

He’s not even making free throws when he gets there. His TS% is hovering near the upper 20s.

That’s incredibly bad. Maybe he turns it up big-time like a lot of vets will, but it’s gotta be like DEFCON 3 or 4, if only because of the extremely limited sample, the trendline dating back to the final 15 games of last season and the knee injury .

I watched a bunch of the Houston game as I haven’t ponied up for league pass yet and couldn’t watch the Knicks. Lin seemed to be moving fine but really wasn’t elevating at all on his drives. NO has some big bodies in Lopez and Davis but other than one gimme that rimmed out (and one make where he should have been called for pushing off) nothing that I saw inside was close. Hopefully, it’s just a lack of confidence in the knee after surgery and he wind up being fine- his lateral movement didn’t seem to be a problem.

I was at this game, it was good to see Pablo hustle in person but his pass no matter how close he is to a layup or finger roll is crazy, we had that game locked up, nets were in foul trouble and we didn’t stay in the paint kept going to the 3 ball. Crowd tried to get a “we want sheed” chant going which was fun and watching the Knicks win was cool. Hope Chandler is okay.

“The only injury that we are concerned about right now is Amar’e,” Anthony said. “We know Tyson is not that bad, and we have a week to get him back. Rasheed is doing extremely well in practice with what he’s doing. J.R. and Camby and those guys are doing what they need to do to get back for that first game and maybe a couple of practices before that. So if you look at the big picture, we have guys who are making a comeback and on their way back. So the only big problem for us is missing out on one of our main guys in Amar’e.”

In the absence of Stoudemire and Chandler, the Knicks’ farewell to the preseason turned into the Melo show — and for a while, it was a horror show. Anthony was 1-for-9 in the first half and finished 4-for-13 with 15 points.

“I sat back and told myself, ‘We’re missing a lot of guys out there,'” Anthony said. “So when guys come back, I don’t really have to put that burden on myself. Yeah, there’s going to be times when I have to score; that’s what I do best. I score the basketball. But for the most part, like tonight, we were moving the basketball and playing defense. We had a lot of good things happen for us.”